


In the Fading Sun

by ilcuoreardendo



Category: Fright Night (2011)
Genre: Car Accidents, Choices, Coercion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilcuoreardendo/pseuds/ilcuoreardendo
Summary: This is not his window. This is not his bed. This is not his roomCharley wakes up to an awful truth.





	In the Fading Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a request at my [Tumblr](http://ilcuoreardendo-fic.tumblr.com) two years ago. (And I forgot to post it here until now.)

* * *

There’s an annoyingly steady beep and Charley swings his arm toward his nightstand. Something crashes to the ground. The beeping continues.

Charley opens his eyes. The lids are heavy and his corneas feel like someone’s dragged sandpaper across them. The room is dim. There’s a large window to the left that emits the faintest orange light through the Venetian blinds; he can hear the sound of traffic outside.

 That is not his window.

 The air conditioner kicks on. The smell of antiseptic cleanser invades his nose. Charley shifts under the sheets. They are too tight, too crisp, too white. 

This is not his bed.

Charley sits up. There’s a piece of plastic on his finger; a chord emerging from it leads to the beeping monitor.

A door to the right of the bed opens, lets in light, the sounds of chatter, the robotic-alien sound of a PA system calling for a doctor.

This is not his room.

“Charley?” Jane Brewster crosses the floor, wraps her arms around him. Charley blinks, inhales. She smells like the warm spring night, like fabric softener, like something strange and savory that makes Charley’s stomach clench and growl.

“Mom?” His voice creaks like old door hinges. His throat feels thick and dry and he licks his lips, that strange savory odor lighting on his tongue. “What happened?”

“A car,” she says, “jumped the curb outside the Hard Rock. You were hit.”

There’s a flash in his mind and Charley remembers. Remembers watching the sun sinking behind the buildings as he rode the elevator down from Peter Vincent’s penthouse, mind and stomach churning; remembers coming out of the hotel, waiting for the bus. The fading sunlight reflected off a silver sedan, moving too fast down Paradise Road. Then pain and nothing.

“But you were lucky,” Jane says. “Just a minor concussion and a dislocated shoulder. I’d hate to think what would have happened if Jerry hadn’t been there to—”

“Mom—what?”

“He was on his way to work. Said he saw the whole thing happen and called 911. And he was good enough to stay with you until I could get here. God. I was all the way across town.” She leans forward, hugs him again. Her hair brushes his face. Charley can smell her makeup, her perfume, the heat of her skin, the salt-scent of her sweat. Her shirt shifts; Charley’s lips brush against the bare skin of her shoulder, finds more of that savory warmth. There’s a sweet, sharp pain in his gum, saliva floods his mouth and—

The door swings open and Jane pulls away.

“Jerry.”

“Jane.” He turns his eyes to Charley; they are dark and glinting like he’s smiling without involving his mouth. “Hey, guy. How you feeling?”

Charley’s stomach rumbles, the sound loud in the hospital room hush. Jerry does smile then.

Jane laughs. “ I’ll go find you a nurse and some food. Will you stay with him?”

“Of course,” Jerry says, coming further into the room. He closes the door behind Jane as she leaves, takes up her perch on Charley’s bed.

Charley has had the wherewithal to pull the IV from his arm, has tried to climb out of his sheets but Jerry’s fingers wrap around his forearm and bring him to a halt. It’s like trying to struggle against a statue.

“What did you do?” Charley hisses.

“Ensured my own survival,” Jerry says, leaning close. “You know, Charley, that whatever your mom comes back with on one of those little segmented trays….it’s not going to take care of that hunger gnawing in your belly.”

“No,” Charley says, but it’s empty, reflex. He can taste the truth of Jerry’s words, along with the memory of pinpricks of pain in his neck, of blood—had he done it in the ambulance, when they wheeled Charley to his room?—sliding syrupy thick down his throat. His stomach rolls. 

Jerry strokes along Charley’s wrist, one suddenly sharp fingernail scoring the skin white, then red. "What you want is inside, running through her veins. And…eventually, Charley,” Jerry fixes him with a level stare. “You’ll try to get it. So, you can either stay here and wait for the moment when you tear your mother apart, or…”

When Jane returns, moments later, she finds the bed empty, the blinds raised, the window open.


End file.
